


The Perfect Year

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From prompt set# 1, I chose the prompt the perfect year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perfect Year

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything, so don't sue me.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Chosen/NFA, vague spoilers.

  
Every week, a new sheaf of letters is laid upon the grave, which is simple, and immaculately kept.  
  
  
Some weeks yield four or five letters--others weeks barely one, mute with pain and dry of tears. Creased by clutching, and ceaseless refolding.  
  
  
Some letters go on for page after flat-footedly prosaic page, interspersed with shamelessly flowery poetry. Others are stark and bare as a November morning, nothing but  _I still think about you. I still miss you. I still love you. W._  to mar the heavy paper.  
  
  
Time sees the frequency of the first type of letter lessen . . . sees the frequency of the latter increase. Sees the lonely nighttime hours spent at graveside grow not exponentially, but logarithmically, till one grey dawn sees an empty bottle of whiskey slip out of a pale, shaking hand.   
  
  
It’s owner slumps on the cool, damp marble of the headstone.  
  
  
“Can’t do it anymore, love,” he sighs, a sob trembling on the very edges of his control. “Miss you too much.”  
  
  
Dawn-rays inch up boot and denim and duster, and he closes his eyes to wait for the first whiff of smoke. . . . the bright, glorious flash of release. . . .  
  


*

  
  
  
By noon, the only scent on the air is grass and flowers . . . and whiskey.   
  
  
Inaudible over the raucous beating of a traitorous human heart is the sound of tears, finally shed.


End file.
